The known axial flow pumps for blood have the advantage of narrow radial width, when compared with centrifugal flow pumps. They may therefore be used for intra-vascular or intra-heart blood pumping assistance. Axial flow pumps typically have a cylindrical housing with an inlet at one end, an outlet at the opposite end, and a rotor within the housing which has thin impeller blades or vanes attached to and protruding radially outwardly from the rotor. Thus, as the rotor rotates, the blades add work to the fluid, propelling the fluid through the housing from the housing inlet to the housing outlet.
A suspension system is provided to maintain the rotor in a desired position within the housing, and an electromagnetic motor is provided to spin the rotor. The rotor may be mechanically, magnetically or hydrodynamically suspended within the blood flow passage. A combination of such suspension techniques may be utilized.
Typically in the prior art, the rotor is suspended by mechanical bearings or bushings, some with a rotor shaft protruding through the pump housing to a motor drive mechanism. Magnetic suspension is also known, as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,368,083 and 5,840,070. The blood discharged from the pump, flows parallel to the axis of rotation of the rotor.
Axial blood flow pumps have heretofore used a thin blade design, with the motor magnets being placed either in the rotor shaft, relatively far away from the surrounding stator, as in pumps by Jarvik and Incor, or they use small magnets placed within the thin blades, as in a pump made by MicroMed. Both of these approaches tend to reduce the motor torque capacity and efficiency, and they require mechanical rotor support involving abutting surfaces that move and wear against each other in rotation.
It is desirable for blood pumps, whether internally or externally located, to be more tolerant of flow variations than the previous thin blade designs and to exhibit low hemolysis, good resistance to thrombosis, adequate system efficiency, and very high reliability for the expected duration of use for the device. Internally located blood pumps are also subject to anatomical compatibility design constraints and the need for elimination of mechanical wear and associated failure modes in order to provide successful, long-term, implantable devices.
While the pump of this invention is described in terms of a blood pump, it is also contemplated that the pump might be used for pumping chemically difficult fluids or non-magnetic fluids, where a sealless design is highly desirable, and the fluid must be gently handled for various reasons, for example because it is unstable to mechanical stress, causing decomposition and even explosiveness, or because it is another complex, biological fluid besides blood, having critical stability parameters.